This invention relates generally to the field of vehicle passenger safety restraint devices, and specifically to a child restraint for a vehicle.
Various types of vehicle seat safety restraints are well known. Generally, they consist of some combination of adjustable straps and buckles which secure the user's hips, waist, and shoulders thereby preventing the wearer from lurching forward during a quick stop or an accident where the vehicle decelerates quickly.
In recent years, specialized infant and child safety seats have been designed and marketed which attach to the standard seatbelts found in vehicles. These products feature their own means of restraining an infant or small child more effectively during travel.
There is, however, one condition for which currently known products fail to account. This is when a child between the ages of approximately seven and adolescence falls asleep lying down in the back seat of a standard motor vehicle such as an automobile or an SUV. In these cases the child, who has outgrown the legal requirement to be placed in a car seat or booster, remains strapped into the standard waist belt but assumes a supine position out of the shoulder belt, and therefore with no protection against the sudden acceleration of the upper body relative to the inside of the car that can occur in a sudden stop or an accident.
In a study by the National Safety Transportation Board, it was determined that children improperly restrained by standard belt restraints were more likely to be fatally, critically, or seriously injured in an accident then those riding completely unrestrained.